On March 1, 2017 Finnegan attorneys Aaron Capron and Arpita Bhattacharyya published an article with the Daily Journal that summarized the Supreme Court's decision in Life Technologies Corporation v. Promega Corporation. This case involved a patent for a genetic testing toolkit with five different components. Life Technologies was shipping one of the components from the United States to a manufacturer in the United Kingdom for assembly and worldwide distribution. Promega, the exclusive licensee of the patent, sued Life Technologies for infringement as a result of the extraterritorial activity.
At the Supreme Court, the issue in question was whether the supply of a single component of a multicomponent product constitutes "a substantial portion" of the patented invention under 35 U.S.C Section 271(f)(1). The Supreme Court held that a single component cannot constitute a "substantial portion" of an invention under Section 271(f)(1). The high court's decision establishes that when a product is made abroad and all but one of its components is also supplied from abroad, the activity is outside of the scope of Section 271(f)(1).
